The Distant Ocean

Some things make me very, very happy

Like this:

Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero won re-election Sunday in a clear endorsement of a record of social change including the legalization of gay marriage and on-demand divorce, reforms once unthinkable in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Spain.

Zapatero also shifted Spanish foreign policy by pulling troops from Iraq in his first term, which he won three days after Islamic militants killed 191 people in a string of bombings against commuter trains.

Time to start researching.

Stuff I'm angry about clearly caused by thing I disagree with

Frothing Israeli right-wing loon, 2008:

Yisrael Beiteinu chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman slammed the Arab Knesset members on Friday, maintaining that "yesterday's attack can not be disconnected from the Arab MKs incitement, which we hear daily in the Knesset." ...

He said that "in light of the incitement of Israeli Arabs" he was not surprised that the terrorist was from East Jerusalem and held an Israeli identification card. "Whoever called the IDF activity aimed at protecting the southern communities 'war crimes,' and whoever incites and burns the Israeli flag in Umm al-Fahm, cannot shirk from the responsibility for the criminal attack in Jerusalem," he said.

Frothing American right-wing loon, 2001:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."

This is admittedly a bit unfair to Lieberman, who looks positively sane by comparison.  Still, it does demonstrate that there just aren't that many arrows in the dedicated moon-baying extremist's spittle-flecked quiver.

Completely different merchants of death

One minor merchant of death:

Viktor Bout, a Russian dubbed the "Merchant of Death," has repeatedly eluded manhunts while allegedly building a global arms empire that stretched from Moscow to suburban Dallas. ...

Mr. Bout (pronounced "boot") was taken into custody by Thai police at a luxury hotel in Bangkok, where he was waiting to complete a weapons deal in which he expected to deliver surface-to-air missiles, attack helicopters and other weaponry to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, federal officials said.

Many huge merchants of death:

The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. ... An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts.

I suppose it's just a matter of  who your customers are.  For some reason, this seems appropriate:

St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great, who asked him "how he dares molest the sea."  "How dare you molest the whole world?" the pirate replied: "Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an Emperor."

An unexpected intrusion of fact

Reader Graeme sullies the discussion of the Obama NAFTA kerfuffle by presenting an actual informed opinion:

I'm Canadian, and was an intern in our country's embassy in DC last summer.  From what diplomats there told me, your politicians are ALWAYS telling us these things.  Usually it was something to the effect that when they talked about border security, they were really just talking about Mexicans, but didn't want to sound racist, or that whatever plans they had for trade, they had no plans to restrict trade from Canada, because it's not controversial.

Sometimes these conversations are started by Canadian officials, after scary speeches by politicians about shutting down the borders or something.  Since most of our trade is with you, we're pretty vulnerable to any disruptions and heading off the potential for trouble is the main role of Canada's diplomats in America.  Ditto for border traffic restrictions, because most of our trade with you is dependent on land border crossings.

US protectionism is our number one fear and foreign policy priority, so they're quick to investigate any scary noises.

So, Obama's not alone, though I suppose that's not exactly a comforting revelation, if it was a revelation.  Those most prone to this are those from States that border Canada (eg. Illinois and New York), but most will do it, from what I've been told.

This is basically what I expected was going on; it's not that the Obama campaign's statements were unusual, they were just exceedingly inconvenient to have revealed in this way, since they contradict the senator's public posturing.  And the denials aren't unusual either.  No, I think we can safely say there is no change whatsoever between standard operating procedure and what the Obama campaign did here.

Obama on violation of international law

Via Robert Naiman, this was Barack Obama's response to Colombia's flagrant violation of international law in its attack on a FARC camp within Ecuador:

"The Colombian people have suffered for more than four decades at the hands of a brutal terrorist insurgency, and the Colombian government has every right to defend itself against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The recent targeted killing of a senior FARC leader must not be used as a pretense to ratchet up tensions or to threaten the stability of the region. The presidents of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela have a responsibility to ensure that events not spiral out of control, and to peacefully address any disputes through active diplomacy with the help of international actors."

Note the deployment of the Israeli-favored "targeted killing" terminology (used to describe an attack that killed 24 people, no less).  Naiman looks at Hillary Clinton's statement as well and judges it to be worse, though in my opinion the differences aren't much more than cosmetic; Hillary's statement is just focused differently (on Hugo Chavez).  On the critical points, they do the same thing: give Colombia's right-wing government a pass, and dismiss international law as a triviality that needn't be applied to US allies.  And in neither case is there the slightest hint that they'd deviate from the last Democratic administration's abominable Colombia policy.

I'm still waiting for that change I can believe in.

(A simple way to find out if Hillbama really believe in the principle they're espousing would be to ask them if it would be acceptable for Cuba to execute "targeted killings" of exiled Cuban terrorists living in the United States.  After all, if a country has suffered for more than four decades at the hand of brutal terrorists, it can apparently strike back within another country without fear of US reprisal or condemnation—even from the "opposition" candidates.)

Jennifer Loewenstein on Gaza

Jennifer Loewenstein is an activist academic who's visited the Gaza Strip for months at a time and has a deep understanding of both the place and the people, and anything she has to say about it is worth reading.  I met her there in 2002, and she's smart, insightful, and a living refutation of the talking point that Palestinians are motivated by hatred of Jews (a claim I encountered from Jewish audience members several times here after I returned, and was able to demolish handily thanks to her example).  She relates this horrifying account of what's happening now as Israel assaults Gaza:

Watch as A, a Hamas soldier, runs for his life into his house. His pursuers miss shooting him so they launch three rockets into the house on the edge of Jabalya camp killing everyone inside (four family members). They are angry now so every house in the way gets the same treatment and without the "militant" to guide their next moves: rockets fired into the interiors of homes with no knowledge of who is inside. Eye-witnesses report this and worse: a six month old baby girl becomes tiny body parts with her mother and brother. A small child is cut apart by shrapnel and screams that she doesn't want to die just before leaving this world. The mothers and fathers cannot protect them so they weep and scream at the funerals that this side of the world never views, especially during basketball season.

Who really cares about these children? Every Palestinian is a militant because everyone (sooner or later) wants Israel off their land, out of their lives, and forgotten like a horrible dream. It is for this reason that they are all equal targets: none of them is intelligent enough to understand that their land isn't their land, their lives are not their lives, and their horrible dream is their present and future. Have no pity on those who don't get it.

Read the rest here.

On the same topic, this story about the disastrous covert US effort to topple the elected government in Gaza is absolutely essential reading (via).

How to stem this tide of misunderstood memos?

This may be old news to everyone else, but in my media semi-bubble here I didn't know about it until I saw this AP dispatch in the local paper:

The memo is the first documentation to emerge publicly out of the meeting between [Obama's senior economic policy adviser], Austan Goolsbee, and officials with the Canadian consulate in Chicago, but Goolsbee said it misinterprets what he told them. The memo was written by Joseph DeMora, who works for the consulate and attended the meeting.

"Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign," the memo said. "He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans." ...

Goolsbee "was frank in saying that the primary campaign has been necessarily domestically focused, particularly in the Midwest, and that much of the rhetoric that may be perceived to be protectionist is more reflective of political maneuvering than policy," the memo's introduction said.

But as noted above, Goolsbee was quick to correct the memo.  So no matter how bad this may look on the surface, it's not the case that Barack Obama is a posturing, cynical, lying bastard who's manipulating people's dire and deteriorating economic situations in order to gather power to himself, after which he'll stab them in the back.  And so it would be wrong wrong wrong to take that conclusion from it.

No, the biggest question this raises for me is: how can we stem this tide of misunderstood memos?  Because it really is throwing a monkey wrench into the process of transparent democratic governance, and undermining what should be a sacred trust in our duly-elected officials.  I'm not sure how to end it permanently, but until we do find that solution, I think it's clear that the only prudent approach is to disregard any inconvenient truths revealed in unguarded settings and instead listen exclusively to ex post facto denials and so-called "spin control" (or "truth revelation", as I like to think of it) by official spokespeople.

[ As another example of this threat, consider my statement that posting would be "light to nonexistent" this week.  I actually meant "continual and maybe even incessant," but my remarks were taken completely out of context by the charlatans who run this site. ]

Hardly the left

Katha Pollitt, writing in The Nation:

If Hillary gets the nomination, Ralph might pick up the hard-left sexist vote, always a valuable demographic, but if it's Obama versus McCain?

Why yes, there's really no conceivable reason to vote against Hillary Clinton other than to express your hard-left sexism.

"Hard left" is the smear phrase of choice for conservatives in this country when talking about, you know, the actual left, and up until now the main people I'd heard using it were 1) Alan Dershowitz and 2) Fox News commentators.  Occasionally in the same segment.  But apparently Pollitt isn't too concerned about the ideological bedfellows she's choosing; after all, there are Democrats to elect!

Hamas pushes the peace process forward

One of the most hopeful steps toward peace in the Middle East that I've heard about recently is described in this article ("Israeli City Shocked As Rockets Hit").  Consider the fact that people in Gaza have been put under siege warfare, starved, bombed, shelled, blasted by sonic booms, penned in like animals, maimed and murdered by the hundreds...but for Israelis living just 11 miles away in Ashkelon, this may as well have all been happening on the moon.  Now they've suddenly been given no choice but to pay very close attention to it and consider what effect it will have on their lives.  As one Israeli woman in Ashkelon said,  "All of a sudden, the reality has changed."

She's absolutely right.  And in this new reality—as awful as it is—it's a real possibility that the ongoing costs of the occupation will be shared by Israelis, with the Israeli government powerless to change that through military means alone, no matter how brutal.  And more than anything else, that may finally leave them with no alternative but to give serious consideration to the  peace offers they've worked so hard to avoid.

Radio silence

I'm out of town, so posting will be light to nonexistent for the next week or so.